Chris Christie has now been hurt where he lives. Media firestorm? Investigative committees? That's bad enough. But Christie was slapped — not hard, but hard enough — by the one person capable of knocking him for a loop: Christie's main man-crush, Bruce Springsteen.

On Tuesday's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on NBC, a bandanna'd Fallon, impersonating The Boss, was joined by Bruce himself, singing a "Born to Run" duet about the Christie administration's apparently politically motivated George Washington Bridge traffic foul-up in Fort Lee:

"In the day we sweat it out on the street stuck in traffic on the GWB

They shut down the tollbooths of glory 'cause we didn't endorse Christie ..."

Christie is a man known to have a rhinoceros hide when it comes to criticism, but that must sting. Not what was said, but who was saying it.

The saga of Christie's mighty, unrequited bromance with Bruce is one of the more lovable aspects of an administration that is not especially known for its warmth.

When Christie, in the early days of his administration, revealed himself to be Bruce's No. 1 fan, he wasn't just whistling "Rosalita": He has apparently seen The Boss more than 130 times. No matter that The Boss is transparently a leftie who sings about disenfranchised working men and campaigned for Barack Obama, while Christie is ... well, Christie. There was something endearing about such a misbegotten love match.

Christie tried to get Springsteen to play his inaugural ball in January of 2010, but Bruce politely declined: The B Street Band, a Springsteen tribute group based in Fanwood, was brought in instead. In 2012, Christie tried to get the Boss to play Revel, the new Atlantic City casino that the governor was heavily backing. "I think Labor Day at Revel would be an incredible show of support for his home state, and for all those working men and women," Christie said. Thanks but no thanks, said Springsteen.

Finally, it appeared that the tale of star-crossed love would have a happy end. As a reward for Christie's across-the-aisle embrace during the Superstorm Sandy crisis, President Obama brokered a phone call — at last! — between the governor and Someone Very Special. "The president told me if I had one minute, there was someone else he wanted me to talk to," Christie gushed to reporters at a press conference.

"Bruce told me how proud he was of his state," Christie said. "It was great to talk to the president — and even better to talk to Bruce."

And now?

But let Bruce put it in his own words: "Nobody knows honey where love goes/But when it goes it's gone."